The Coppa Laverda

Like many great ideas the Coppa Laverda [Laverda Cup] was a simple one. The notion of a one make series fostering young talent whilst providing a marketing platform for the company’s products is nothing out of the ordinary nowadays. Back in the seventies it was a unique concept and Laverda pioneered this form of dynamic motorcycle marketing. Initially the race series was conceived as a solution to a rather serious problem; the anticipated sales of new 500 had been badly affected by a punitive purchase tax increase levied on motorcycles of 500cc and over forcing Laverda to think very quickly how to promote the bike and generate much needed sales.

The Coppa races offered an attractive package to riders; the Formula 500 was a thoroughly modern middleweight motorcycle with inherently good performance thus making it an ideal machine for club racing. Offering a tuned version of the company’s new roadster to enable riders to participate in a race series subsidised by sponsorship deals was a tempting proposition for up and coming riders. The series was supported by the factory offering technical support and supplying spares at heavily discounted prices. The races were held as support acts to major national meetings thus ensuring plenty of publicity for the young talent and of course Moto Laverda. No special tuning was allowed and initially there was an upper age limit of 30 years for the riders and a condition that none of the entrants had finished higher than 3 rd in their previous race careers .

One of the prominent riders in the first season was 23 year old Filippo Brettoni. Presumably the age restriction was lifted in the second season because he was joined by his brother Augusto who was not only in his thirties but had also finished higher than 3 rd place on numerous occasions during his illustrious racing career! For the next three years the Brettoni brothers were always placed in the top ten in the Championship, in fact in 1979 [and again in 78] Augusto came 2nd followed by his brother in 3rd place.

Filippo was a very fast rider and Augusto’s race career was far from over –remember he was paired with PK Davies in ’77 and ’78 when they won the 500 class in the Barcelona 24 hour race-yet despite their considerable abilities they didn’t dominate the Cup by any means. This illustrates how the Coppa Laverda had attracted some of the cream of Italian National class riders into the series.

Many talented racers cut their racing teeth in the Laverda Cup before going on to greater things and the series proved to be so successful it ran for four years with Belgium and Germany running their own series.